Forgiving What You Can't Forget : Discover How to Move On, Make Peace With Painful Memories, and Create a Life Thats Beautiful Again (9780718039882) by TerKeurst Lysa

Author:TerKeurst, Lysa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
Published: 2020-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

But saving someone isn’t possible if they don’t agree they need to be saved. Even if I get them off these tracks in this moment, they’ll climb right back on them tomorrow. If your heart is more committed to change than theirs is, you may delay the train wreck but you will not be able to save them from it.

And from what I’ve experienced, the more you keep jumping onto the tracks to try and rescue them, the more likely it is that the train will run over you both.

I don’t say that lightly. I say it lovingly, because it’s true. I wish with every fiber of my being I could tell you that you can do enough to one day cause that person to change . . . to give enough . . . to love enough . . . to forgive enough . . . to beg enough . . . to talk enough . . . or to control enough. But it’s not true. Change can only happen for them from the inside out. Truly sustainable, lasting change must come from inside their own heart, not from pressure exerted from the outside in.

Think about CPR. Exerting pressure from the outside in can temporarily pump blood through someone’s veins. But they can’t live in that state. And neither can you. If their heart doesn’t start beating on its own, you must eventually stop the compressions. At which time you can turn them over to the professionals, who can shock their heart and continue to try chest compressions as well. But at some point, even the very best doctors and nurses know, the heart has to beat on its own for life to be sustained.

It’s true in a physical sense, but just as much so in a relational sense.

Now this doesn’t mean that I don’t continue to care about that person. Nor does it mean that I cut them out entirely, forever. But it does mean I change my role and my job description. I want them saved, but I am not their Savior. I want them to get better, but I cannot work harder at that than they can. They need Jesus. They need self-control. So, I shift from efforts of control to efforts of compassion.

Compassion lets me love that person, empathize with their pain, and acknowledge their side of things, even if I don’t agree with them. And it still allows me to speak into a situation. But after I share my wisdom, my advice, my discernment, I make the conscious choice not to rescue them in any way if they walk away and do the opposite. I can weep with them. I can rejoice with them. That’s biblical. Romans 12:15 gives those exact instructions.

But weeping with them and rejoicing with them does not mean trying to take control of their out-of-control choices and behaviors. We can forgive them. But we cannot control them. And we should not enable them.

How do we know when we’ve crossed over

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